Major Microsoft security hole could cause disaster

Marc Maiffret, chief hacking officer for eEye Digital Security, has warned that a major hole in Microsoft products could bring about the same kind of disaster as those that resulted in the Blaster and Sasser attacks. Maiffret expects hackers to quickly take advantage of the hole, and that a worm may be on its way as we speak.

He said that the hackers will win the race because they will publish an exploit in the next couple of days and a worm will hit the net soon after. He said that it was such a glaring bug, he didn’t know why anybody else hadn't discovered it.

The hole means that hackers can take over a computer using the operating system’s ‘plug and play’ hardware detection feature.

Fully updated versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP are less vulnerable, but still could be affected by certain remote users or those within local systems, the company said.